Three Antique Tombstones

1. In a Dudshell

An eligible bachelor’s advice was heeded:
Should I then quit this neck of the woods or stand
Pat since it was time to construe conclusions?
―Your life’s meant to be a celebration. So, both.

When we first wed, we hung out laundry
But by now the pegs dangle lonely because
We keep clean. Picking their battles is the bane of
The prematurely defeated.

In certain high dudgeon I did wizen
Silvering right up to my depleted voice.
Unlike the birds who are wired to the main, I dug a
Particular hole, atop the graves, in search of resonance.


2. A Poem without Typos

Is a poem where you can read “antler” for “anther” and it
________________________________________withstands.
Was my life such a poem? I was not working at a university, I
Was a self-taught poetizer, I was under my own
Universal control, I’ve never got any serious
Poetic license, a dim-sighted man blessed with spectacles I
Had rather good chances, though, to tell an anther from an antler.


3. Receipt for Compensation

Long
Shyly
Stirred
By bits and bobs and passing beauts
Sniffed redolencies having me
Well-nigh tear up, into pointless
Eruption, withheld, hidden outburst; lachrymose
I was not myself. I began to be
Who I was supposed to be
Once yawning supine under a tree
In full blossom, and slightly bedazzled
Receiving evidence of the ephemeral pomp
Wafting down on my face without
Lifting a goddamn finger
On the part of the indifferent tree
(Or an apathetic breeze)
In compensation for
My lost moral abilities.


April 21, 2011